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Swiss Eggs

A baked dish of hardboiled eggs filled with a creamy yolk mixture and topped with cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Swiss Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Halve the hardboiled eggs lengthwise and remove the yolks.

  2. Mix the yolks with salt, pepper, nutmeg, raw egg yolks, double cream, and enough grated cheese to form a soft paste.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the egg white cavities with the mixture, smoothing the tops.

  2. Place the filled eggs in a buttered dish and sprinkle with additional cheese.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until hot and browned.

Serve

  1. Serve with Bechamel Sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Cream + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Raw egg yolks
Bind the yolk filling into a smooth, cohesive paste that holds its shape.
Double cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the yolk filling soft and creamy.
Grated cheese
Melts into the filling and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and colour.
Hardboiled eggs
Provide the base structure, with the white cavities holding the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until hot and browned. Baking heats the filling through and browns the cheese at the surface. Underbaking leaves the centre cool, while overbaking can dry the yolk filling and toughen the cheese.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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